2012 March 28: The Start of My USA Road Trip by Andy Lee Graham

Today is Saturday, March 31, therefore I have been in the USA for a couple of days, and I experiencing one of the great benefits of travel."I am changing the channel in my brain."

The Start of My USA Road Trip

I have been away too long, and too far, after 14 year of living outside the USA, there is some loose thoughts roaming around in my brain. I do not know how to explain, or if I wish too, I am not sure the world really cares to understand. Each journey we make alone at the end of the day, and I have dropped myself into the USA, a place that feels like a distant memory. I am American, I am proud to be from the United States, however, this is not the same Andy Lee Graham who left the USA 14 year ago in March.

I left the USA in March, 14 year ago, flew to Mexico, that is when I accidentally started to travel outside the USA perpetually. 90 countries later, I have become a world citizen, I am not sure which culture to call my own.

I am still a perpetual traveler, but for the next few months, or forever, or for a frew days, I will travel in the United States. I do not plan much, there is no plans to end to this USA Road Trip, I think I am truly one of the few true nomadic travelers on the planet.

What is the difference?

Please, I am not selling romantic views of life, my lifestyle should not be admired, please do not follow me, I do not want you to travel the world. However, it would be great, it would be nice, if you understood the line from a Robert Frost poem.

"Two roads diverged in a wood,and I, I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference."

What have I done?

What has made the difference is that I made the choice, not you, not my country, not my family, there is nobody to blame for my life, I took the road less traveled and that made all the difference.

Road Trip Usa Photos

Me thinks it is too early in the morn or too late at night when you started this blogg. A gutt laugh start, either a typing error or jet lag or seeing too many Ft Wayne friends. My friend, there is no March 32nd, only 31 days in March. I wish you all the success in the world on your new adventure. Remember, I am the one person who always has your back in prayers and never quits.

When Lao Tsu was on his way out of china a few thousand years ago, he was stopped at the great wall.... and told by one of the empirical guards that he needed to write all that he knew on a tablet before he would be allowed to leave China.

So he wrote. Thousands of words.

And when he was finished he handed it to the guard and said 'If it can be put into words, its not on the path'

Lao Tsu left china, there is no record of him since.

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In the mid 1970's NASA experiments had shown that an established group of rats could be divided into two groups, then the groups separated by a continent. One group was allowed to learn a maze, to get food. I took days before they got efficient at running the maze.

The other group confronted with the same maze lay out, learned it in hours. There had been no physical contact. They were separated, half a world away from each other, but they knew the maze.

I left Jan 77 and have never spent a consecutive 12 months in the States since then, 35 years ago when I was 22 years old. My wife and I will be doing a road trip Sept 5 to nov 5, going back to my hometown, Des Moines Iowa for 10 days for the fist time in 10 years. Then we'll head up the Great River Road following the Mississippi River and across the great LAkes, Michigan and Canada to Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine before New York City. I'm looking forward to ithope you enjoy your experience in the States as much as you're enjoyed your last 14 years.